Vertigo on Holiday Road
by smokingace
Summary: The gang goes to Scotland while the school is being repaired. High school AU series.


**Title:**Vertigo on Holiday Road

**Pairing:**Kanda/Lavi, Lenalee/Allen

**Rating:**R for derogation, language, and sexuality

**Disclaimer:**DGM belongs to Hoshino Katsura et al

**A/N:** Epic High School AU; the one where Lavi goes on a road trip and Kanda reluctantly goes with him (because Kanda has the car).

&

Kanda is kissed on the neck for the umpteenth time, so he is getting a bit intolerant of the exhibitionism. He nudges Lavi off him by kicking him in the shin, and Lavi stands down, bowing from the pain.

"I told you," Kanda says. Lavi nods, rubbing his ripped jeans up and down.

They're here because the school had been set on fire, with no culprit in custody, but Kanda definitely says that it must have been Lavi, and Lavi definitely says it must have been Allen, but who is he to rat out a friend? Pardon? Okay, lover.

You can imagine the beautiful pain they have put each other through.

Now they are waiting for Lenalee to arrive at the exact time and place Kanda had described to her. The broken down auditorium is being renovated, which should (you'd think) give clue as to where she should find them. (He's sure she must have told Komui a whole myriad of white lies.)

"Reckon she was arrested for burning down the school?" Lavi asks curiously, leaning against the building.

Kanda looks at him, and Lavi adds, "It's an idea."

"Maybe _I_ should arrest _you_," Kanda says, recalling their board-game.

Lavi chuckles like a deranged know-it-all. "If you wanted to roleplay, all ya had to do was say so."

Tch. Kanda checks his watch. A kid rides past on an ill-formed bicycle.

Of course, Lavi calls out to him to show him a few tricks. The kid does something stupid, something that could get him killed, and then moves along, getting nearly run over by a drunk driver. Truck driver. It's all the same.

His mood is taking a direct nose-dive.

Suddenly he can hear his name. Someone's calling for him. Someone's mocking him. Someone's running toward him with black hair and a doodle on his face. The girl with this someone is skipping with a few bags flying behind her. They run up to him.

"The fuck," Kanda says matter-of-factly.

Walker gawps. "That's not a nice way to welcome guests!"

Lenalee skips around Walker and gingerly places her bag at Kanda's feet. "Hey," she says, kissing his cheek in the usual way before he can push her into the street. She squeezes his arm and whispers, "I'm sorry, he had to come along. Please be hospitable?"

All Kanda hears is _hostile_. _Please be hostile._

Walker makes to do the same as Lenalee in order to add insult to injury, but Kanda is already ahead of him. "Back off, brat." He points at Walker and sends his signature death glare at Lavi. "The fuck, Lavi."

"Ooooh, well, ya see, there's an explanation for that," Lavi says, clearly not about to explain himself, or why he decided to invite Walker along without warning, or even why Lenalee was at liberty to pass on the information to little stinkers. (Maybe Kanda should do them all a favor and give Komui a call.) Lavi picks up Lenalee's bags and begins to walk in the direction of Kanda's car, a definite hop in his step.

Kanda can hear Walker jabbering on about places to see. Lenalee listens.

She's got ears of gold, that girl, whereas Kanda's about to sever off his own.

*

In the car, at a light, they wait by the Mikk's flat complex. His door in particular is decorated with just a sign that says, _please enter at your own risk_, the_i_dotted with a monstrous heart. What poor taste, albeit appropriate for. . .someone with bipolar disorder?

The only reason Kanda knows for sure it's Tyki Mikk's door is due to the fact Tyki Mikk is walking out of it with bags of rubbish, whistling, hair up in curled knots, a cigarette dangling between his teeth. This is one prime example of multitasking. Kanda just wonders exactly how he teaches his classes.

Well, now that the school was conveniently out of service. . .

"Yo, Mickey D!" Lavi calls out, and the Mikk waves, taking out his cigarette and blowing a cloud toward Kanda's window. Kanda shoves Lavi back into his seat and goes to roll his window back up.

Mikk approaches Kanda's still-open window despite the well-calculated unsociable look on Kanda's face. "Wud up?" Mikk says smoothly. "You going on that saucy trip of yours?"

"That's right, my good man," Lavi says. Kanda bares his teeth.

"Don't tell me you told all your teachers. And it's not _saucy_." Grumble, grumble.

"You're forgetting, I'm not exactly his teacher," Mikk says. Kanda could cut him.

"Right, the light's turning," Kanda says, about to shift, about to crack Mikk's head open.

For some reason, the guy seems to really deserve it.

"Wait! How 'bout comin' with us?" Lavi suggests, and Kanda nearly cracks everybody's head open.

Mikk ignores Kanda's enthusiasm at rolling up the damned window. "Can't, man, gotta play house with my brother and niece this weekend," he says, and Kanda could have sworn he winked at someone in the backseat. Walker, maybe.

There is some mouse-like squeak from behind. Walker, completely.

"You have a foot, use it," Walker says darkly, putting his fist against Kanda's headrest.

Mikk chuckles and flicks away his cigarette. "Have a naughty, saucy time," he says.

"_Not_ saucy," Kanda says, putting aside the direness of the window and putting both feet on the pedal, gearing it until they zoom through the light and horn-honking and pedestrian-wondering, what the fuck are _they_ smoking?

The wheel bumps over a pothole and Walker says, quite pitifully, "I think he has it out for me."

Then Lavi wastes his time saying that, this being a trip of saucy proportions, Walker will surely forget about Mikk sooner or later. "Would you like me to take the Mickey outta ya, Allen? C'mon, no strings attached."

*

Not much later does it strike them to finally plan their destination.

And Kanda just keeps knocking them out of the park.

"How about Inverness?" Walker says, bouncing in the seat behind Lavi now.

"How vair vair fanatic of you, Allen," Lavi says importantly, sucking on a pen.

"Why?" Lenalee hums. Silence except for the sounds of the city and a celebrity clacking her heels on the pavement.

Kanda looks in the rearview mirror, not really feeling what he is saying. "It's where Harry Potter is fictionally set. Walker, don't you _dare_ put your gum there."

Silence except for – nothing.

Not even crickets, if crickets were around this time of day.

*

It is probably about five minutes later when Walker and Lavi finally give up laughing to the finish line. They only stop because Kanda threatens to stop the car in the middle of an intersection.

And then on the motorway entrance.

*

And then on the motorway.

*

By the time they are driving quite safely (in Kanda's humble opinion), the rest of them are rooted to their seats, passing cautionary glances to each other. Kanda can taste their fear. It is like corn syrup on Halloween night when you successfully scare the shit out of the neighborhood brats.

"Errrmmm," says Lavi, and Walker giggles.

"Out with it," Kanda says, and then Lenalee giggles even louder than Walker.

"If you don't tell me the joke, I will deliberately get into a head-on collision, and_I_ will emerge unscathed, while you loons remain trapped inside to think about how unnecessarily mental you make everything."

"Ahem," says Lenalee.

"Uh, Kanda, that would be a bit impossible, seeing as how all the cars are going the same direction?" says Walker in a querulous voice, as if mocking Kanda for even thinking up such a punishment.

"I'd figure it out," says Kanda confidently.

"Can't I drive?" Lavi says suddenly, just as Kanda is almost distracted by the look Lenalee is giving him in the rearview mirror.

"I thought I had you two switch seats," Kanda says.

"I wanna driiive," Lavi practically screeches, and Kanda wonders how his mother ever handled him. (The subject remains undisclosed.)

"Lavi, switch seats with Lena. Right now."

"But I just got my license. C'mon, be a good sport, Yuu?"

"Fuck off."

"Hey now, it took me two tries – "

"Three tries. It took you _three_ tries to get it right." And why should Kanda trust a lazy intellectual who only applies himself when it comes to breasts, lips, and asses.

Don't ask about which lips.

"Two, three, who's countin', I ask the proverbial jury. It only matters when it comes to how many times you've scored with – "

_See._

"Hey, a hitcher!"

"No, Walker, I am not picking up a madman who will most assuredly cut _your_ head off just to have my car. No." But Kanda looks at him in the mirror to size up his chances.

"Well, realistically, he'd probably wanna have a piece of Lenalee's sweet a – "

"Lavi, if you so much as finish that sentence, I will kick your sweet balls in," Lenalee says, and they all go quiet.

*

A minute passes, and before Kanda knows it, whole sixty-second filled minutes have passed, making this journey a bearable one. He sighs in relief.

Then a hand is mussing with his headrest again. Scratch, swish, fist. "So, like, when you think about it, Kanda'd be able to answer that question," Walker dares to say.

And that's one big dare.

He drives on in silence he drives on in silence -

"I mean, wouldn't you know what Lavi's balls taste like, Kanda?"

He slams his foot on the brake to scare them all. When that process is over, Kanda says, "Walker. I have it on good authority that you are about to die in the most heinous manner."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I am turning this car around and dropping you off at that bloody _Mikk's_."

He can hear Walker scream inside.

*

Walker is grabbing at the headrest, shaking it and wailing, "I'm a good boy, I am! I'll be good! Just please don't live up to your reputation!"

Lenalee hushes him and pats him and Kanda simply relaxes, smiling. "Good boy," he says, "good boy." He can feel Lavi looking over at him. "I haven't forgotten about you. _You_, now, switch seats with Lenalee."

He can hear Lavi droop inside.

*

Now that Lavi is in Lenalee's seat, beside Walker, and Lenalee is comfortably in Lavi's seat, as if queen, Kanda can frankly breathe. He's driving like a good (serious) driver, minding his own business, not paying much attention to the whisperings going on between Lavi and that loose-lipped Walker. He has half a mind, actually, to put one of them in the trunk, but that's just a technicality.

"Um," Lenalee says, and Kanda says, "Oh no."

"I haven't driven in so long, and I could use the practice. . ." she trails off, playing with her fingers.

Kanda acts like he can't hear her. And then he gives in because he is that kind of person.

"No," he says.

"But."

"Lenalee, it's unlawful."

"I thought you said I was a decent driver."

"That's right, decent, not _outrageously_ decent."

"What's the difference?"

This: Kanda honks at a speeder who is speeding faster than he is.

"Hey," Walker says.

"It is the difference between life and death," Kanda tells Lenalee, nodding at the dashboard.

She crosses her arms and says, spitefully, "I'm not the one slamming on the brakes every five minutes all because of your need to express your manhood."

Kanda promptly brakes it, though his heart is softening for the need to prove he is indeed _not_ expressing his manhood. He is expressing his _rage_, outrageously. Is there a difference between manhood and road rage?

Well. No.

He calms himself and apologizes by way of reaching his hand out to, possibly, touch her shoulder, but he is rudely interrupted by Walker.

"Hey. Can _I_?"

Kanda nearly drives into the median this time, knocking over some construction sites. Not all, just some. Luckily there's no one left back there to take his license plate number.

In his defense, Walker is a madman, and Lavi is his accomplice.

"Well," Walker says, "at least I can drive better than _that_."

*

Lenalee is the one who ends up driving Kanda's (hear it: _Kanda's_) car. Obviously Lavi and Walker are not qualified to be in control of two (other) innocent lives.

Though Kanda sometimes wonders how innocent Lenalee really is. Sometimes, when he is hardly thinking about it. You know. When he thinks about the opposite sex.

Anyway.

Lavi is braiding her hair as she is driving and it's really getting on Kanda's nerves.

"She's not some peasant farmer, Lavi," Kanda tells him.

"I know. She's an _adorable_ peasant farmer who would have, back in the day, been taken straight _home_, if ya get my meaning."

Lenalee doesn't swat him like she would have normally, for she is trying to show off her outrageously decent driving skills. Kanda knows very well what she would like to do to Lavi, however, to her credit.

Walker, on the other hand, is busy juggling or _something_ with the back of Kanda's passenger seat. Kanda tolerates one more second of it before he abruptly turns around to demand Walker to go juggle at Cirque du Freak or something.

"Been there, done that," Walker sings. "Any more bright ideas?"

So Kanda decides Walker's been spending far too much time with Lavi. He broods for a bit, eyebrow twitching and his eye on the horizon, where there is a hostile takeover of the stormy persuasion.

Isn't that just too bad.

*

The ominous gray weather stays with them for the next few hours. No one leaves the car, no one causes an accident. Things are, how you say, _out_ of the ordinary.

Then it starts to rain, and Lenalee wants to pull over.

They are on a back road now, in the countryside, where things can get a little antsy.

Lenalee says that she has to pee, and do other feminine stuff, and she says it so flightily as if to give the impression that telling all her male friends about her feminine stuff isn't that big of an issue.

But it becomes an issue when Walker says, "Lena, you didn't tell me you're on your _lady's wave_ again." He whispers this, a hand around his mouth.

Kanda gapes at him in horror. To hear it repeated like that is enough to send a grown man praying to the gods for them to just. Shut. Up.

Lavi raises his brows, a sickened smile on his face. "This is all too familiar," he says.

"Just go," Kanda says, pointing at her driver's door. She frowns and gets out, asking Lavi to pass her purse from the backseat.

"I don't know, Lenalee, it's pretty wedged back here. . ."

"Lavi, she is not about to climb back here with us. You know better," Walker says sternly, holding the purse out from where it had been, nestled into a collapsible armrest. On second thought, Kanda hadn't been aware that his car could do that.

They wait as Lenalee runs off into the wild brush a mile away to do her business. The rain starts to pick up speed, gathering in rivulets. Moreover, Kanda can see lightning over the hills.

At least he's in the car.

"Oy, Lavi, get out and tell her to hurry her butt up," Kanda says.

"That's a no-can-do, sergeant," Lavi says, miming a walkie-talkie.

Kanda looks at him.

"What. That's a negative, Colonel? It's pouring outside."

Good. Maybe he'll melt.

"That's my point. She's going to come back and complain about how wet she is if you don't do something."

Here is when Lavi starts to snicker to himself, and then he has the balls to nudge Walker, who had been insofar absorbed into a comic book about a demon gone good, ignoring his own girlfriend's welfare.

Walker snorts, and hides his face with the book, and Kanda says, out loud for the whole countryside to here, "_Wanna step outside permanently_?"

But just as he's about to pull Lavi out the car by his many piercings, the rain stops, and Lenalee comes skipping back, jumping over puddles with, naturally, a pocket umbrella swinging in the air. She settles into her seat before she realizes that they're all looking at her in awe.

"What? You didn't think I'd come unprepared, did you? I may not be able to pee into a cup, boys, but Lord knows I know how to pack a mean purse."

*

Night falls too soon out here, Kanda thinks, tapping Lenalee on the shoulder to remind her to turn on the lights. She hums along to the song on the radio.

Mercifully it's something that Kanda can stomach.

"Can't take my miiiind off of yoouuuu," Walker sings, and Kanda quickly snaps the radio off. Almost literally.

"I have to pee," Walker whines, as if to literally piss Kanda off.

"I wouldn't pull over if I were you," Lavi tells Lenalee.

"And why is that?"

"'Cause on account of all the wild rabbits this time of night."

Kanda wonders what the hell he's talking about this time.

Walker acts like he's all interested.

"Lavi, get over yourself, it's only evening," Kanda says, even though he knows what the dark does to him.

"You know what I think it is?" Walker begins to say, most absurdly. Kanda makes a piffing sound. Lenalee rolls her eyes and lets him know that she's curious, what? Kanda gags to himself. Walker forges on anyway. "I'm thinking Lavi has developed a fear of his own kind."

Kanda stops gagging, and starts nodding seriously.

Lavi says, "W-what about the wildcats, eh?"

Kanda says, more seriously, "We're not in Scotland yet."

"I was talking about _you_."

Of course, you needn't ask: Lavi is forced to sit with Kanda in the backseat, making Walker a happy camper. This way, Kanda can keep a solid eye on all of them.

*

Kanda grows bored with keeping a solid eye on all of them. So while they talk about high school shit in the background, foreground, whatever - he meditates.

*

And falls asleep.

*

When he wakes from a short nightmare, he looks around and feels as if he'd been molested in many impossible ways. He looks at Lavi, who is in the front, obviously something he had done while Kanda was off getting molested by some unseen entity.

So Lavi, who is in the front, driving _Kanda's_ car, is being told where to go by Walker, of all people, who has a map spread out everywhere.

Wait, how did Walker find that? Secret map is supposed to stay secret.

Kanda, in a fit of concentration, and wondering where the hell Lenalee is, looks over to find Lenalee snuggled up against him. He rubs his eyes, clears his throat.

Walker, in the middle of his I-know-better speech, turns around to look at Kanda and lets out a shriek.

Kanda, already frowning, scowls; then Lenalee wakes up, startled, inadvertently (_pfft_) slamming Kanda in the groin with the heel of her hand. Kanda lets out a shriek of his own, and only because Kanda can see Lavi amidst the sea of tears, and because Kanda still has good ears, does he witness Lavi almost hit a giant deer.

They swerve, Lenalee calls out in hysterics while she grips onto Kanda, and Walker gets an extreme paper-cut, barking out, "Stop groping my fiancée!" Kanda is on the brink of passing out, and Lavi is shouting, "Way to keep a secret!" It's all a general foofaraw. Except that it's not exactly a small matter.

"It's _my_ secret!" Allen shouts.

"Lavi! _Allen_," Lenalee cries.

"Sorry, but you should be on my side, you know," says Lavi.

"No, no, it's just, Kanda needs air," she says, near tears herself.

They pull over so Kanda can rest his groin -

*

And kick some ass.

*

"Long overdue," Kanda growls, spitting into the dark grass.

They stand around him as if to shield him from the road, or the car, which he would just take back at any given moment if only he could summon the strength to stand upright to begin with.

Lavi doesn't think it wise for Kanda to drive in his particular _condition_. Kanda says Lavi shouldn't drive in such a condition, either. Lavi claims that no one has hit him in the balls yet, on this trip. Kanda threatens to solve that problem. Lenalee is so embarrassed by the accident, or incident (depending upon whom you ask) that she can barely show her face. She apologizes over and over, plucking grass up.

Walker then pipes for the fifth time that he was carsick and that Lenalee is the one who suggested it. You know, the crime of the century.

"Oh I _know_. Who wants their ass handed to them first?" Kanda hunches over, hands resting against the driver door. He waits a moment. "And Lenalee, you are not to marry. Especially _him_."

She makes a motion to object, but her voice drops, and they stand there, in silence, maybe mourning the fact that she is only seventeen and engaged to that unspeakable nuisance.

*

Later when they're trying to set things up for camp, apparently since Kanda is cheap (better believe it) and Lavi wants to be a cowboy (which is textbook), they must decide who gets to camp with the female.

Lenalee, to be precise.

It is a weighty decision to be made and not many brains in the camp can make it.

Lavi and that brat, to be precise.

"Lenalee, why would you hire another tent?" Kanda says, slow enough for an infant to understand.

"Kanda, are you speaking to an infant?" she says right back, jamming a stake into the dirt.

He hesitates. She looks at him. "Uh, no," he says, changing the question part of it at the last second. "But clearly you are not slee – _rooming_ with that brat." _Clearly_.

She stands up with her fists at her hips. "What did you expect? Lavi hired the gear for you and himself, and I hired gear for Allen and myself. Yes, he has a name."

"I didn't say anything."

"You looked it!"

"Guys, guys," Walker says from inside the tent. Then he lets out an _ouchie!_

Kanda gives Lenalee that _now_-I-may-step-aside-and-you-may-wake-up look.

She gives him her I-should-have-kicked-your-balls-instead look.

Lavi stokes the fire. He accidentally burns himself, but doesn't make a sound. Kanda feels oddly vindicated, though Lavi has hardly anything to do with Lenalee and that brat's relationship. Hardly. The details still have to be worked out, fine tuned, labeled to Kanda's kind of perfection.

"You. Brat! You'll be sleeping with Lavi."

The brat squawks, Lavi mimics him, and Lenalee stomps her foot.

"That's attractive," Kanda comments dryly. Lenalee holds her hands out. And then she seems to reconsider, holding a particular finger out instead.

"Be reasonable. I am sleeping with my fiancé no matter what you think. We are a couple, thus entitled."

Pretty dumbass title, then.

"Wait a moment, Lena," Walker pipes up from the front of their tent. "Wait, if I'm not mistaken, I thought I heard you call me a_man-child_ earlier?"

She starts to do that girly scoff. She openly denies it like a boy, nevertheless.

"No, no, I heard you!" Walker seems to gain momentum, stepping out of the tent and meeting her at eyelevel. "You said that even though I proposed – 'cause _you_ hinted me to! – you think I've still got some growing to do, as if I'm not a complete boy already. Hmph!"

Keyword, Walker, keyword.

"I," she says.

"I heard you!" he says.

Lenalee crosses her arms. "Kanda, tell him you never heard such a thing."

Kanda stares at her. And snorts. "It's on you, Lena."

Lavi pauses in the construction of their campsite. "Er, am I missing somethin' here?"

"Yes!" she cries, flipping her hair over her shoulder at Walker. "Allen is taking offense to something that _never_ _happened_."

To something that Kanda had heard her say, actually. He had just thought that brat would have preferred to sleep - _room_ with her, instead. It's amazing what can happen once you wait a while.

Kanda wins in all of this, right?

"And because Allen won't get his head out of his rump, I will be sleeping with Kanda."

Wrong.

Lavi drops the whole side of his tent and Kanda drops his stomach. "_Rooming_," he growls. Because there is a big fucking difference.

"That's fine with me!" Walker says, hurrying out of the way as she retrieves her things. "I'll be sleeping with Lavi!"

"Rooming!" Kanda reminds them all for the hundredth time. Really, this is just. Fffffff. He gathers his senses. "There is no way you're infecting Lavi with your idiocy."

"Oy!"

"That is, more than society's norm."

Lavi throws a rock at Kanda and Kanda naturally dodges it. Lavi crawls over to him, on those gangly hands and knees, and wouldn't you know, Kanda is feeling this undertone.

"What do you want," he says.

"Yuu, come off it. The faster you get those two wankers to calm it, the faster we get to bump our lovely uglies. So hop to it, boss."

"The fuck?"

"You know, I'll sleep with Allen tonight, and you – "

"Lenalee is _not_ a wanker. That is reserved for you and that brat - "

"Fine, fine, have it your way, then."

"Always," Kanda says, and smiles in the firelight, quickly grabbing Lavi by the wooly collar and kissing his bottom lip, his favorite part. The piercing is still there. Somehow, that's become Kanda's favorite part too, vain flesh wounds. When the reminiscing is over, he quickly shoves Lavi away and goes to room with Lenalee since he himself is the lesser of two evils.

And he could never stomach that brat in bed. In the sleeping bag. Whatever.

*

Once Lenalee is tuckered down, _away_ from Kanda, in a tent of their own, he immediately opens an ear to hear what the other two real wankers are up to.

"Kanda."

Kanda ignores her. He is very busy.

"Kanda, Allen – I mean, that brat, doesn't fancy your significant other that way."

Kanda stops ignoring her. "Pardon."

"Don't act so disappointed."

They might be able to rekindle some of their lost kinship after all.

Lenalee pulls out a self-help book. Kanda scrutinizes it from the distance.

"Kanda?"

"What is it with you readers," he says, as if the title puts a strain on his tongue.

She sighs. "Are you healing all right?"

They don't talk for the rest of the night. Kanda spends most of it being very busy listening for telltale signs of fornication.

Get off it. He's never usually like this.

*

The morning starts out with Lenalee asking Kanda, in a tender voice, about his balls.

He could really kick a bitch.

He doesn't grace her stupid question with an even stupider answer.

So they pack in silence while Lavi makes an ass of himself by hanging all over Walker. The hair on the back of Kanda's neck stands up, but as is habit, he ignores it to show he is far above revealing any signs of human characteristics.

He just doesn't operate that way, sorry.

When the opportunity arises, Kanda pulls Lavi aside (behind the car), and rapes the hell out of his mouth. Lavi chokes and breathes against Kanda's ear. "_Rabid_."

"You calling me a rabbit," Kanda says, narrowing his eyes.

"No, I'm just thinkin' you might've been infected with Lenalee's baby-making rabies."

Kanda scoffs, _unlike_ Lenalee, fuck you very much.

"C'mon, somethin's gotta make her want a man-child."

Kanda smiles. "Are we in accordance then?"

"'Course. After I put the moves on him last night, ya gotta believe he scurried into his sleeping bag like some sort of pygmy puff."

Nothing but the heavy spring winds at the Scottish border.

*

"Lavi, why is Kanda driving like that?"

"He always drives like that."

"Did you say something to him?"

Kanda picks up speed.

"Nah. More like, it's what a rough lover he makes."

Kanda slams on the brakes once again. The road is clear, and they're well over the Scottish border. And speed limit. Not to mention that he has no idea what it is.

"L-Lavi," Lenalee says carefully from the passenger seat, braced against the dash.

"I know, I know, I'm an idiot."

"No, not that." She checks the backseat again. Kanda can feel her glaring holes into the side of his head.

Lavi catches on. Moreover, he catches on dramatically. "Ah fuck! Yuu! You totally abandoned Allen!"

Kanda spits out the window, thumbing the wheel. "You know what they say. If one must eradicate the problem. Then so be it."

"They don't say that at all!"

However, Kanda's only eradicated half the problem.

Lenalee just sits there, staring at her empty ring finger. It was empty before. Lord knows why it should change now.

*

"Will you stop staring at it?" Kanda says, almost begging her.

They are on their way through Scotland, after having to turn around to pick up the miserable man-child from the side of the road. He is currently not talking to any of them.

Lenalee looks out the passenger window. Apparently she's not talking to Kanda either.

Well. He. He prefers it this way.

"Yuu," Lavi begins.

"I should have left you both behind," Kanda says.

"So you are talking to me."

"No, simply putting out the alert. Don't make me turn this car around."

"But Yuu. You're the one who left the miserable man-child – "

"Not a man-child!"

"The miserable _child_ behind. How's that sound?"

It sounds like Walker is trying to beat the shit out of Lavi's pack.

"Don't make me come back there!" Kanda yells, and they hush up once again.

Lenalee, just for future reference, is the one who ruined it for them all.

"Just so you know," she begins emotionally, and turns around to face Walker. "Kanda can at least keep a secret."

Kanda nods at the windshield. "For once, that is a valid observation."

They dare not scream at him to shut up, for Kanda holds the car keys, and thus, their saucy fun, over the precipice.

*

Two seconds later:

"Did you fondle my fiancée last night, Kanda?!" rattles Walker, clinging to the back of Kanda's seat.

Lavi tackles him, causing Walker to catapult off it.

Kanda merely moves forward with a sneer on his face, finger flicking on the radio. "Lenalee, defend yourself."

"Girlfriend, Allen, _girlfriend_," she speaks up, turning the knob to get a better station. She lands on some crooning madwoman with phlegm. Hardly better, but okay.

*

They stop at a takeaway diner in Dumfries. To mark the occasion, Lavi notes that they should all have chips 'n dip (French fries, rather). Nobody believes he got the memo.

"Lavi, we're in Dumfries. It's got nothing to do with. . ."

"I wouldn't try, Lenalee," Kanda informs her, making them sit down at a table outside. No one is to eat in his car. Period. "He'll just latch on further. You'll never get rid of him."

"Like you?" she says, blocking Walker from her extra order of chips. She pours tartar on them for extra measure. Walker, predictably, backs off.

Kanda scrutinizes Lavi as the latter tries to stuff his face with his large order, getting Walker's approval. "I wouldn't say I've gotten rid of him, per se."

Lenalee surveys Lavi, and then Walker. "Still, he keeps to his own food."

Right on cue, Lavi shows Walker a trick by eating the chip sticking out from between Walker's lips. Kanda watches in horror, and Lenalee does him a favor by backhanding Lavi in the shoulder. He pulls away from Walker, whining and munching away on that evil chip, rubbing his shoulder, and Lenalee is shaking out the sting from her hand, looking on at Kanda from under her fringe.

Kanda pulls himself together to shrug it off, and Lenalee pops a chip into her mouth, cringing at the taste of either tartar or loss.

Same damned thing. His balls still sting a little.

*

Shitty trip is shitty. Not saucy. Whoever thought of such a waste of a word should be shot.

Oh yeah, that was Mikk.

Die, creeper, die -

Kanda suddenly smells the familiar stink. He looks in his mirrors, unable to spot the source. He looks at Lenalee in the passenger seat, and she's sitting there, eyebrows disappearing into her fringe, an amused yet cautious smile curving her deceptive lips.

"Um," she says, and points toward Kanda's seat. He curls his lip and throws his arm back to attack whatever's hiding there.

"Blimey, take my head off, why don'tcha!"

"Lavi, put that cigarette out right _now_."

"All right, eh?"

But Lavi is telling lies, because Kanda can still smell that stink in his stinking car.

"Lavi!"

"I'm goin', I'm goin'."

"Lies!"

"I'm doin' it. Really!"

"Lenalee, slap him for me."

"I don't know, Kanda. He has that needy-nicotine look. He doesn't look stable."

None of them look stable! None of them _are_.

"Fuck that, he should have quit a fucking long time ago. _Lavi_!"

Lavi is still taking last-minute puffs, practically sucking the life out of it. Kanda is wondering if throwing someone out of a moving vehicle is homicide. Frankly, this is Scotland, with nothing around them for miles. The authorities would hardly notice a little road-kill.

"Walker, open that door!"

"What? You must be joking. Really, Kanda, you can't order me around."

"Oh yeah? I order you to open that door. And make sure you boot him out, not your usual pansy half-assed way."

"W-what?!"

"If you have a problem with the guilt, don't worry, you are more than welcome to join him."

"Lenalee, do something!"

Lenalee sits there, filing her nails. From what Kanda's seen, she has no nails. She must worry too much about how she'll eventually manage to produce non-idiot offspring by that Walker.

But that is not allowed to happen.

Lavi sticks his head between their seats, cigarette _still_ in hand. "Lenalee doesn't have such a problem with it, do ya, Miss Chitchat?"

Lenalee swivels around toward him, her pigtail swatting his face, and this is the time Lavi chooses to drop the cigarette into Kanda's seat. Kanda elbows him, and Lavi really does drop it, albeit momentarily, onto his side of the car floor.

"My God my comic!" Walker positively screams, and Kanda's Zen nearly erupts.

"Hey! Good as new!" Lavi announces.

_Eruption_: Kanda grabs the resurrected cigarette from Lavi's fingertips (commence desperate sobbing) and chucks it out the window (commence desperate search for more cigarettes).

"Don't even think about it," Kanda warns him. He's warned him enough, over time. Lavi needs to learn not to piss Kanda off. And, fine, he needs to learn to respect the organs that are keeping him alive. At least Kanda knows this much. He doesn't need to babysit a nicotine addict. He already has to babysit his own bodily dysfunctions.

But that's none of your fucking business.

"For your own information," Lenalee says impishly, flicking her file in the air, "a pregnant woman would not tolerate your need to pollute the lungs of a possible future leader of the world, you," she looks at Lavi with a heavy eye, "_scruffy_ idiot."

What.

*

What?!

"Oh - feckinghell," Walker says, his street-rat side getting the best of him.

Lavi lets out a nervous chuckle, and Kanda swallows his throat. He screeches the car to a stop. A lorry happening to be passing startles them all, even Lenalee, out of their craniums.

Walker, that horny bastard, presently clings to her seat. Kanda vaguely wonders how he keeps getting around back there.

"Lenalee, tell me it's not true," Walker whines.

"What are you on about?"

He shoves Lavi out of the way from looking for more cigarettes, or for his brains. "Lenalee, please tell me you're playing a crank?"

"It's _prank_, you horny bastard," Kanda says, pulling him by the ear.

"I thought _I_ was the horny bastard," Lavi says sadly.

"Am I sleeping with you?" Lenalee points out, and they all squawk in indignation.

"I-I-I should hope not!" Walker spouts.

Lavi lets out a burst of resignation, and hunkers down in his seat, arms diligently folded, where they should remain, forever. Kanda spots the pack of cigarettes in that fold and promptly confiscates it in a way the royal guard would have applauded. Lavi holds a vigil, keeping to himself, finally. Again, the way it should be.

Kanda turns his attention back toward the horny toad. "If you knocked her up, I'll never forgive you."

The horny toad gives a tiny objection. "I!"

Kanda turns off the engine. He waits.

Lenalee sounds like she's trying not to laugh too much.

The horny toad stutters too much.

Really, they have all day.

*

"If you don't speak up anytime soon, you and Lavi will be walking home. _In the dark_," he adds.

"Not the dark, Yuu," Lavi says quietly.

Somebody has an irrational fear, you see.

"For the love of condoms, Allen, tell him you knocked her up!" Lavi shouts.

The horny toad turns whiter than usual, a stark contrast to his dyed black hair. Kanda notices a gypsy braid in the mess. Obviously the horny bastard can't keep his hands off him. What must a man do to keep his lot clean around here?

Obviously Lavi was never his to begin with. What fools.

It starts to rain. Kanda breathes out. Rain.

Lavi starts to lose it, grabbing the back of Walker's suspenders. "I will not be walking home in this rain, Walker!"

Kanda sighs and rolls up his window. He speaks under their pandemonium. "Lenalee."

"Yes?"

"Ahem."

"Really, Kanda, let them go on like that."

He looks at her, pursing his lips.

"Don't believe it for one second. I have more respect for myself than that."

He nods. Certainly.

"It's called the Pill. It's a miracle when you need it."

He goes into a coughing fit.

"Oh I'm kidding, Kanda! Please, let's keep moving. Kanda. Kanda? Are you all right?"

*

Sure he's all right. Never better. His fuck-buddy is cheating on him with that brat, that brat may or may not be fucking his childhood friend, who, in truth, he feels very protective over, and his childhood friend is playing headfuck games with the person who cares about her the most. Also, his car now reeks of cigarettes. Did Lavi just light up again?

He's concerned, is all. That should count for bloody something.

"Lavi!"

"Okay, okay, it's goin' out, man alive. . ."

Walker bumps into Lenalee's seat. "Please tell me you're joking? I won't marry you if you're not joking."

Lenalee takes offense. Kanda can't tell if it's real or not, he's just trying to filter them out. "So you mean to say you wouldn't marry me if you knock – _if_ you so happened to get me pregnant?"

Walker eats his words. "Uhhh."

She laughs darkly. "Well, looks like Kanda is more marriage material."

Kanda tries so hard to filter them out. But the filter is obviously broken.

Walker gasps. Lavi gasps. Kanda almost gasps.

"Not that you would ever marry, Kanda," she amends, patting his knee. "I know you're above that hardship."

He nods. "Right." Though he is slightly gasping inside. He doesn't know where it's coming from. Ffff.

"What do you mean you'll never marry me?!" cries Lavi suddenly.

Maybe that's where it's coming from.

Kanda hurriedly repairs his mental filter.

"That wasn't very tactful of you," Walker whispers. "You even deprived him of his vice."

"I thought you said you hated smokers," Lenalee says before Kanda can backhand Walker in the nose. Ironically, Kanda tends to avoid confrontations such as these.

"Well, I do. But I feel bad for those with the crippling habits."

Lavi calmly drapes over Walker's shoulder. "Ain't that right? So Cross is just a fluke, am I right?"

Walker seriously considers it. "No, he's just a whore."

"Right on, man-child."

"I would believe that," Lenalee says.

Finally something real that Kanda can agree with. Cross is a creepy whore, just like that Mikk. They're meant for each other. End of story.

This is how they reach a settlement on their non-saucy trip.

*

It lasts about five minutes.

*

By the time they arrive in Glasgow, Lavi is saying he wants to visit the great haunts of Edinburgh, and Walker just wants supper and dessert and teatime and someone to take care of him. Lenalee is doing what she does best: taking care of him.

"I _don't_ know why you still bother," Kanda tells her, leaving the motorway.

"To think, here I am bleeding like a stuck pig and he's thinking he's going to be a father."

Kanda neglects pulling into a restaurant at this time.

"Ha ha, that's one naughty joke," Lavi says, sounding sickened but relieved.

Lenalee bunches her nose at them.

"Nasty, too," Walker says, rubbing his stomach. "Okay, anybody for a beefsteak?"

Kanda finds another restaurant so as to let the understandable nausea pass.

*

They're eating in a rather steamy tavern. Kanda can feel the warmth rushing into his face, like his happy place. He feels good. Not on his feet. But good.

He's eating some sort of fish, and to him, certain fish must be devoured in a particular, respectable fashion.

Unlike Walker, who devours it as if it would forever be the very last thing to intrude on his territory.

"You know," Lenalee begins out of the blue, "it would be a bit hard getting pregnant, doing what we do."

Walker chokes on his fish, Lavi's fish ends up on the other side of the tavern, and Kanda's fish is henceforth untouched.

She's really getting into it, isn't she?

Lavi, unfortunately, resuscitates Walker. Kanda now notices how Lavi's sideburns curl around his face when they get too long. He wants to grab that hair. Pull it. Make Lavi groan in pain and pleasure. _Thanks for resuscitating him, asshole, but hey, thanks for putting out that cigarette._

He pushes his plate away and chews on his lips to let the nausea pass again. Lenalee happily goes on eating.

*

He's pumping unleaded gas into the car when Lenalee approaches him, the others off screwing around or whatever they do when they're left alone. Those fuckers.

By the light of the gas station, he can tell her head's wheels are turning. Rather whimsically, one might say. Rather scarily.

"What now," he says, leaning against the car.

"How are you doing?"

"Why, after all your regalements of your stellar adventures in the sack, one might feel queasy in the bowels. I have yet to recover."

"You sound like your loose lover over there." She smiles.

"Honestly, Lenalee."

"Honestly, Kanda, you always exaggerate. If you boys had any common sense, you'd realize that, firstly – "

"Firstly isn't a word," he grumbles, popping his neck.

"Now you sound simply know-it-all."

All right, Kanda decides that he's been spending far too much time (read: all his time) with that loose lover.

What. Ever.

"Firstly?" he encourages her.

She clucks her tongue. "What I do in the sack, or the hay, or whatever many girls do these days, is not something I need to be telling you all about."

"I never said you had to." In other words, _why did you scar me for life, woman?!_

"And _secondly_, Allen is younger than I am."

"Which is why he is a brat." In other words, _are you confessing to this crime?!_

"Well. . ."

Kanda unhooks the hose from the gas tank. "What are you thinking, Lenalee?"

"A favor?"

He holds his hand up. "No more favors. Remember the last time? I was almost arrested. Do you know what that could do to my record?"

"You _were_ arrested."

He deadpans, plunking the hose back into its slot. Main road traffic drives by in increments. Lights hit them then fade away like a marching parade toward the darkness of utter sin.

She pleads.

"No," he says.

"But you're my childhood love. You must understand that?"

He drops his mask of obstinacy and puts on a new one. "What are you talking about?"

She latches her arms around his. "Please, oh please!"

"Lenalee, if this is going where I think this is going."

"What's going? Lenalee, you're makin' Allen look kinda shy here," Lavi says, waving a bag of goodies above his head. Walker hangs over the roof of the car curiously.

Kanda turns blue in the face right before the A-bomb drops.

"I'm sorry, Allen, but Kanda understands me more than you ever have. Please, don't take this breakup too badly."

Walker's jaw drops, right about hitting the roof, eyes going, well, beyond their sockets.

This is why Kanda never takes them anywhere.

*

"How could you!"

"Quiet, runt, I'm driving."

"How could you!"

"I did just say I'm driving, didn't I?"

"Lenalee?! Please tell me you're lying!"

"Will someone reach back there and rip out his vocal cords?"

"Oh Allen, I did apologize."

"Wow, Lenalee, you are serious. Look him in the eye. Allen, check her pupils."

"I've checked her in more places than _that_," he grumbles, hurt, balling into himself by his window.

"Oh yeah, like where?" Lavi asks, and Kanda throws the non-secret map at him. "D'joo wanna go to Edinburgh now?" he asks, and Kanda rightfully ignores him. "I know a detour."

"You always know a detour," Lenalee says.

"Well, somebody's gotta. Am I the only directionally-inclined person here?"

"How could you!" Walker squeaks again.

Kanda sighs. "Again, I did not steal your precious flower."

Lenalee gasps and pokes at Kanda's knee with her nail file.

"Woman! You have no nails left, what the hell are you filing," Kanda hisses.

"_I wouldn't recommend talking to your new girrrlfriend that vaaay_," Lavi sings in that sort of foreign. . .way. (Kanda could never understand it.) Lavi reburies his nose into the map that takes up half the backseat, almost swallowing Kanda's grand view of Walker.

"What are you? Swedish?" Kanda says, attention swaying from the road.

"Is that some jab against the Swedes? 'Cause I dare say, they're pretty friendly when you get to be on their good side. That one waitress with the flaxen hair down -"

_Don't finish that sentence._

"Like you would know a good side from a woman's ass."

Lavi unburies his nose. "It would have to depend," he says seriously.

"On what," Lenalee puts in.

"If she'd know what to do with it."

"You're sick, Lavi," she says, stabbing her nail file into his map-shield. It rips through, and Lavi howls, saying something about J. K. Rowling's house.

Kanda growls.

"Sorry, Kanda," she says quickly.

He nods.

"That's it, then? Just like that?"

"Lavi, you're not easily forgiven," Lenalee informs him.

"You mean I'm not easily forgivable."

She gives Kanda a significant look. He nods. Yeah, yeah.

"Lavi," he says with as much heart as he can muster, "I'm not about to apologize. But we are through."

Lavi crinkles the map, permanently damaging it.

Kanda can see Lenalee nodding with conviction, as if she knows exactly what she's doing, and having Kanda do. This is kind of bogus. And, truthfully, full of shit.

And Kanda hates headfucks.

Every last one of them. Except this one. He's never been such a bad boy.

But that is a lie.

*

Kanda pulls over on the side of the road, by a farmer's plough, and blares his horn to wake Lavi and Walker up, and hopefully not the farmers.

Lenalee jolts away from him, possibly also having fallen asleep. Lavi punches the back of Kanda's headrest.

"We're here," Kanda says brightly.

"I said an inn. I wanted an inn," Walker is saying.

"Kanda, my back does quite hurt from last night," Lenalee mewls softly, rubbing it for them all to see.

Walker immediately takes the bait. "You did something to her, didn't you, Kanda?! You must answer me with nothing but the truth!" Blah blah blah.

"Oy, oy, Walker, c'mon, kid, it's a bit late for the rendition," Lavi says, opening the car door despite the shrill fear in his voice. He slams it to show he is not too thrilled, no sir.

Kanda smirks.

"What are you smiling about, you bastard," Walker snips. To avoid Kanda's aim, he shoves himself out of the car, slamming the door as well. Kanda stops smirking.

"Idiot." But that comes from Lenalee.

*

"So!"

Kanda is back to smirking. "So."

It's a face off of the most unparalleled variety. Walker holds his ground. "So!" he repeats.

"Walker, do us all a favor and sleep it off," Lavi says, deeply entrenched in his tent, tossing out a random bottle of graffiti paint.

Walker has Lavi's headband around his head, where it should not be. It is highly devastating to see, Kanda might add, if he were ever held at gunpoint. Swordpoint would be a different matter entirely.

"C'mere and I'll pierce your lip for ya," Lavi continues. Lenalee throws the bottle at his head, and he catches it. "Or we can get high?"

Walker seems to genuinely consider this. "I won't turn green or anything, right?"

"Oh no, the worst that can happen would be your untimely death," Lavi says.

Kanda recognizes the tone. "Yes, Walker, I approve of this peer pressure. Please, do us all a favor and – "

"All right, boys," Lenalee calls out, "the night is, um, late, and I suggest sleepy-weepy times, so, off you go, off to beddybie. No, Allen, you may not sleep with me."

"But."

Lenalee makes a piffing sound. Walker gapes in her wake.

Kanda stands at the entrance of their tent as she ducks inside, leaving Walker to face Kanda all over again.

"So," Walker says.

"So," Kanda says.

"So she's chosen you, has she?"

"No, she's wisely biding her time for the class clown."

"Your sarcasm is."

"Is what."

"Is! Is so un-thera-peu-tic!"

Gasp. Kanda tilts his head at Walker's oh-so-big word. Something tells Kanda that Walker's been reading Lenalee's book. Yet, after all this time, after all the inflections and deliberations, they are still the dunces Kanda has come to know. Truth be told, Lenalee has no more business being with Kanda as she does with the class clown.

"Oh _Alleeen_," Lavi sings from his tent, "I found my staaash. It was in my butt pocket all along. Dude, there's just enough for the two of us! Sorry, Kanda, dear, I guess you'll just have to – make out – with Lenalee."

*

Stash. Pfff. What a user.

Wait. Make _out_? Who the fuck does he think he is, that chocoholic freak!

"Kanda, is something wrong?"

He looks at her with hooded eyes, setting the lamp between their sleeping bags for insurance purposes. He's not in much of a mood to build a fire, and anyway, they're sleeping on farmland. He's pretty sure the farmer would not be, how you say, too pleased with them.

He would not be too pleased with the porno graffiti on the plough, either.

"I would have to say – yes. Keep your sleeping bag on that side, thanks."

"You're all."

"What."

"Talkative."

He curls his lip.

"But you're also doing that meditation thing, I know it."

"Lenalee, you know nothing."

"Ah, that's better," she says, clapping and clasping her hands together. She purses her lips.

He rolls over and covers his head so that all she'll sadly see is a big lump that's dead to the world. Let's see her clap for that.

Silence. He rustles his cover some more to drown out anything else.

"Kandaaaaaa."

"Good God."

"You _can_ hear me. You never talk to me anymore."

"You've been infected with _him_."

"Excuse me."

"I mean, you're growing up so fast?" Kanda has his moments, don't hate.

He can feel a body nudge him, and then collapse on top of him, so that the cover caves in, and he is suffocating, feeling, just a little, claustrophobic. Scared.

"Off," he grunts.

"Remember when we used to play house?"

He lets this ease away in order to avoid a confrontation of a different nature. "Yes. You kneed me in the groin that time, too."

"I would have to disagree. I hit you in the regions with my fist."

"No, I distinctly remember you kicking me in the balls."

"You just said I kneed you!"

"It doesn't matter which way you cut it. It still hurts!"

"Oh I'm sorry, does it still hurt?!"

"No, I'm saying it hurt that time. And the next. And the next, you madwoman, get off me!"

She fumbles off, landing beside him, only partly better, only that the situation looks bad – grim, even! And Kanda is getting very annoyed with his dearest childhood friend.

(Second dearest, but that's still none of your goddamned business.)

He draws his knees up so she can't do anything madwoman-like, in effect distancing her from him mentally.

Almost. These tactics only truly work when the other pays attention to them.

She climbs back over him, trying to tickle his ribs, pigtails tickling his nose instead. He laughs, coughs, totally does not laugh, and snakes his hand out to pinch her nose. She snorts and he withdraws, disgusted by her display of bodily fluids.

"_Snot shots_," he says, wiping his rather barren hand on his pants.

"I'm taking it you don't approve?" she says sardonically, threatening to bring her arm down into his lower region.

He blocks her, and she pouts.

"Seriously, Lenalee, still healing."

She stills. She hums. "Um, you are?"

He waves her away.

She pulls his cover back. "Show me where it hurts."

He crawls back in horror. She's just a. . .child, in that body, isn't she?

"No! No, not that. Honestly. I meant from before."

"We're not to talk about that," he says imperiously, for her to get the broadest. Hint. Ever. He yanks his cover back from under her but does not crawl back into the sleeping bag. He eyes her warily.

"Wait. What are you talking about?"

"What are _you_ talking about?"

"I'm talking about the school thugs beating you up!"

He throws his pillow at her as a last resort. He'd almost forgotten she was a girl.

"_Why not scream it a little louder_," he hisses, pointing her to her bed.

She has always been the stubborn mule sort. She sits on his pillow. "Well, Kanda, if you just can't admit it."

"Oy. I admit things," he lies.

"Oh? Like how you really tried defending Lavi?"

He stares at the shadows against the tent. Someone's been spending all her time joined at the hip with that stupid -

"Like how you really, _really_ tried defending Allen?"

"_Walker_." He catches himself too late, and looks at her to see her smiling like _that_.

"Mm, boys can be so. . ."

He watches her suspiciously. She laughs shortly, sounding as if she's getting over an ordeal of some sort. Gasp. Lord, what could it _ever_ _be_?

She gets up and leaves.

*

Kanda tries to fall asleep before she can come back. Hurry like your ass is shitting fire! His whole life depends on it! He practically breaks the lamp in putting it out.

*

Zzzzzzz -

He is brutally awakened by footsteps at the unzipping of the tent flap. In a flash Kanda thinks it must be Walker, coming to make peace, perhaps to talk (in detail?!) about how Kanda didn't give those thugs a righteous kicking in return. Surely, Kanda is trained in the martial arts. He should know how to beat the seven shades of shit out of a few school bullies.

However, Kanda is smarter than that, and knows (as of late) how to, to put it in a translatable way, _control_ those urges. He chooses to stay safe rather than sorry, opting for a clean record so he can go out into the world without owing anybody anything.

Fffff –

Kanda sits up. "Walker, you can shove it up your – "

"Whoa, so brutal, bossy boss."

"The hell. Lavi."

"Just came for a visit, babe. How's it?" Lavi commences burrowing into the top of Kanda's sleeping bag like a porcupine. Not him _too_?

Kanda. He just. Ag. He doesn't bother to remove Lavi from it. He. Well. He kind of likes it when he's in the presence of affection, shut the fuck up.

"Get your own room," he says, for the sake of appearances. Even to the guy who pretends to cheat on him all the goddamned time as if it's sport.

"Did you break the lamp, Yuu."

"Of course I did. It was annoying me."

"Aw, heck, that's what I lurve about youuuu," Lavi coos, reaching to play with Kanda's cheeks. And not the facial ones.

Kanda goes through the same ritual with Lavi, tossing him off, clawing at him in order to discourage such behavior. When he manages to grab Lavi's balls through those skinny jeans he must have gotten from the lost and found, Lavi bowls over, worshipping Kanda's leg.

"Did Lenalee send you in here?"

"N-no?"

Kanda twists.

"Yes, yes!"

"I don't see how you can wear these."

Lavi wraps his legs around Kanda's waist. How the fuck. Just. Fine. He takes out his stash.

"Do not get any of that on me. This is a hire."

"C'mon, try one. M&Ms are good for yaaaa."

"I think I prefer your smoking."

"You're right," Lavi begins unabashedly, chewing on an M&M. "Allen says he's only into me for my crippling habits."

"Ah blast, that had never occurred to me. You weigh a fuck-ton, by the way."

"Are you calling me fat."

"Lavi." And Kanda _laughs_. He grabs the bag and holds it away so he can see, and feel, Lavi squirm. Moreover, they both grow a bit distracted. Somewhat pacified. Ex-_tremely_ horny, when one gets down to it.

Mm, boys, as Lenalee would (innocently) say.

"Give me my stash and I'll give you a blowjob."

"_Hey_!" someone cries out from the other tent. Tormented-like.

Kanda shakes his head. One, two.

"Two blowjobs?" Lavi whispers, ducking his head near Kanda's earlobe. Uh. Ungh.

No deal.

"Two and a half," Lavi whispers, "and that's my final offer."

Kanda holds the bag back up to examine it in the dark. He jiggles it. Lavi coils his fingers through Kanda's hair. Uhhh. Like he's spinning silk.

"What's the half?" Kanda asks curiously.

Lavi whispers into his ear, now acting as if they're the most discreet they've ever been. Interesting. Very –

Ungh.

"Deal," Kanda says, quite aware of the fact that there are hardly any M&Ms left, and that he's always had Lavi to himself.

Then Lavi creeps down the front of the sleeping bag, forcing Kanda to rip his own pants right off in his, um. Excitement.

Ah, he may break whatever crosses his path at one time or another, but Lavi's got crippling habits hopping all over the place, and Kanda's got to replace the Lenalee cooties with Lavi's kind of compelling ones.

Plus, Kanda's got needs of his own, damn it.

*

When it's all over and Kanda is breathing Zen into his pillow, Lavi says, "So. Are we back on?" He's either putting a cigarette or a stick of gum into his mouth. It's unclear.

(And there will be no jokes about _fags_ being recently in Lavi's mouth, fuck you very much.)

Kanda looks up at him, genuinely touched, ready to admit some things.

(And there will be no jokes about _genuine touching_, either.)

"Hm – no," Kanda says.

Lavi then blathers on about how he'll march right back on over to that tent over there and switch partners again. They'll become swingers or something.

He _may_ have a point. "Anything but Lenalee," Kanda says, hooking Lavi around the neck and reeling him into bed.

*

"Did you enjoy your night together?" Walker asks in the morning just as they're piling into the car. He's grinning like a fiend.

Kanda narrows his eyes. What could make any red-blooded male grin like that?

Lavi beats Kanda to it, pointing and shouting, "The man-child's finally been tainted!"

Walker rolls his eyes. "As if you haven't done enough already."

However, truth-be-told, Walker's history isn't something you'd happily share over tea and crumpets.

"Enough!" Kanda says, starting the car. He makes sure to speed for a few minutes to burn some dust, or whatever it's called.

Though, he may need to change tactics, considering they don't seem to work on these hooligans anymore. God, three blowjobs (you bet your sorry ass he gets what he wants) and lack of sleep can do many things to his otherwise stable sensibility.

And, while commiserating on how to change said tactics, he happens to look over toward Lenalee's lap, where her hands sit, curled slightly. Sure, Kanda thinks nothing of it at first. Something you would see every day, innocent, youthful. _Those_ don't look tainted.

Then again, her hands actually look, somehow, restful this morning. He doesn't know if it's the sun peeking out of the clouds, or the low hum of the radio, or that repulsive yakking sound Walker is making with his tongue, or the brave moves Lavi is putting on his pack, searching for those long-lost cigarettes that, yes, Kanda _does_ know about, fuck you very much. (Guess who's getting another blowjob?)

But wait.

*

In the next moment, Kanda cries out incoherent bits of Japanese that are in no way translatable here, and everyone, even Lenalee, leans in to view the modest engagement ring on her tainted (insert creative Japanese here!) finger.

Kanda quickly learns that stealing an engagement ring from a seemingly gentle girl is harder than it looks, and that she will, as most girls do, scratch your eyes out.

All the general chaos.

*

"I refuse to be your brother-in-law, Walker!" Kanda says when it's all over and done with.

Silence.

Wait. Wait one damned minute. Silence? May this silence reign supreme?! Is this too good to be -

"Would you settle with being just my brother, then?"

(Insert Very Bad Outcome here.)

Kanda watches as a single car passes them by the side of the road. He wonders vaguely if it, in all its (pansy) miniature glory, has any towing capabilities.

And you would _think_ this'd be the first of his problems.


End file.
